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A look inside the Dasht-e-Barchi Hospital

27 Apr 2016

Since November 2014, Médecins Sans Frontières has supported the Afghan Ministry of Public Health District Hospital in Dasht-e-Barchi. The 30-bed maternity and 20-bed newborn unit offer services free of charge, with a focus on complicated cases. During its first year of activity, the Dasht-e-Barchi maternity ward carried out 10,727 deliveries, 17% complicated. The high quality care for patients is provided by a team of about 191 Afghan and international qualified professionals.

In the delivery room, a Médecins Sans Frontières midwife dries a newborn. This is part of the routine care all newborns receive in the first minutes of life

Low birthweight babies like this set of twins need to stay in the newborn unit they gain weight. They must be fed and monitored regularly, and kept warm, to help them grow

A Médecins Sans Frontières doctor listens to a premature newborn's chest, as part of the daily care and follow-up provided in the Kangaroo Mother Care unit.

Premature or sick newborns who find it hard to feed can receive breast milk from their mother with the help of a syringe. This baby is also suffering from jaundice

A midwife helps a mother wrap her baby to her chest for skin-to-skin care in the Kangaroo Mother Care unit.

A new mother performs skin-to-skin care, which helps her pre-term baby grow by keeping it warm, promoting breastfeeding and bonding, and reducing the risk of infection.

Jaundice is a complication that can affect newborns, but can be treated by exposure to Ultra-Violet (UV) light under a phototherapy lamp.

This mother of 8 sits with her sick newborn in the MSF newborn unit in Dasht-e-Barchi. Her first 7 children were all born at home but now that MSF offers free delivery and maternal care, she decided to come to the hospital.

Having shown good progress since their birth three weeks ago, low birthweight twins Zohal and Ojate Hosine have been discharged from hospital and are now home in Kabul.

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